Unofficial news and tips about Google

April 9, 2012

Google Music Labs

If you're looking for more features for Google Music, try the new Labs page. Google informs that "Google Play music labs are a testing ground for experimental features that aren't quite ready for primetime. They may change, break, or disappear at any time."

Right now, there are three experimental features available: desktop notifications for Chrome, HTML5 audio and 5-star ratings. If you enable 5-star ratings, thumbs ups and thumbs downs will be converted to 5 stars and 1 star. HTML5 audio "works in all browsers that support MP3 playback with HTML5 audio: Chrome, Safari 3.1+, and IE 9+" and replaces the hidden Flash player that's currently used.

After enabling desktop notifications, you should see an infobar that asks for permission. Click "allow" and Google Music will show a nice notification enhanced with a cover art thumbnail when a new song starts playing.

I used a proxy to log in and set it up google music months ago and it couldn't work better. I only had to log in via the proxy once, and now the syncing online to my GN or playing it off the browser works so well all the time. It's worth the few minutes it takes to skirt around it.